Social Media Smelly Carp

If you’re looking for a company that pays no attention to social media other than to use it to “advertise their stuff” look no further than US Airways. Their strategy stinks.

After writing Social Media Sushi, about the Mandarin Oriental Miami’s perfect social networking strategy, it’s hard not to notice when other companies do social media badly. In the Mandarin’s case, it started with a simple, customer-specific interaction with me on their Facebook Page, and ended with a hand-delivered plate of chocolate sushi thanking me for becoming a fan.

In the case of US Airways social media strategy, what we see instead is an experience hand-rolled in a ripe, smelly carp.

Why? Because US Airways apparently has no social media strategy to speak of. Their Facebook Page is as un-social as you can get: A “protected” page that simply lists their latest advertisements. Fans cannot post anything to the wall, except comments. Nobody comes back to comment on yet another “price discount” offer. Maybe that’s why US Airways has barely over 10,000 Facebook fans (heck, we have over 3,000).

Consider this experience: Leaving the Mandarin Oriental in Miami today for Chicago on US Airways flight 1700, my ticket said I had a “Choice” seat. That’s US Airways’ version of the extra legroom seating most airlines upsell on a coach ticket price. What the customer expects is a few extra inches of legroom compared to the cattle class. Here’s how it’s done on US Airways flight 1700:

Now, I’m only 6 foot 1. Not a giant, by any stretch of the imagination. But I wasn’t the only one in the Choice seating section to notice there wasn’t any more legroom. We were all asking each other, “Did you pay $20 extra, too?” Apparently, nobody had told maintenance to space the seats out a few extra inches. Yet the reservations website took our twenty bucks all the same.

So, what did I do? I didn’t dare complain to the flight attendant: She clearly left her screwdriver with her smile back in her hotel room today. So I did what all modern customers do: took out my smartphone, snapped a photo and posted in to my Facebook page. I originally tried to post it to US Airways Facebook page, but, as I said, it’s protected so Fans can’t share anything. I also Tweeted it the photo with tag “@usair” hoping to catch someone’s attention. Perhaps the company was monitoring their brand in the Twitter stream, and I’d have a direct message by the time I landed in Chicago.

Little did I know that nobody at US Airways headquarters knows how to use Twitter. Their Twitter account’s profile actually says:

Go to their website to file a complaint? Really?

Of course, that hasn’t stopped customers from having their say on Twitter. Good and bad, tons of tweets tout their experiences with the airline. But since US Airways doesn’t consider social media a valid customer service tool, (We aren’t able to provide a proper response on Twitter) there’s never a reply, a direct message or even just a “we hear you” added to the conversation.

Just the worst of all social medial strategies: Social media silence.

And social media silence stinks. It’s the sign of a company that doesn’t take social media seriously. That treats it merely as another advertising channel. That doesn’t see the learning opportunities, let alone the customer service opportunities.

That apparently has no clue that modern customers don’t fill out online forms on your website any more.

Of course, it’s not just US Airways that suffers from this attitude. Plenty of companies in my favorite industry, real estate, show little signs of understanding how social media is different from advertising. Lots of smelly carps are on display on real estate Pages and Tweets: Just look for companies constantly carping about their latest listings, their price reductions, their open houses…. blah, blah, blah.

Social networking isn’t about you. It’s about your customers. Give then a venue to talk, and make sure someone at your company is listening. Create a dialogue, not a monologue. Most of all, be there. Companies no longer get to set the terms for talking to (and hearing from) customers. Close your call centers and delete your website contact forms. Reassign all those people to social media accounts, where they can watch, learn and most of all, interact with customers.

Today it’s Facebook and Twitter and texting. Tomorrow it’s going to be something else. But if your social media strategy is just another stream of advertisements, where customers can’t interact and have their say, then you’re never going to carpe diem with the help of social media.

I love ways to empower the consumer. This certainly is one! A picture IS worth a thousand words! Realtors, there’s a lesson here for us too! If dissatissfied customers can get the word out with one photo, satisfied customers can do the same! Social media can work to spread our good and honest reputations earned through hard and earnest work for our clients! Encourage your clients to give you their referrals by posting online like this!

Matt, this post cracked me up. Most companies don’t understand its about the consumer. That is especially true in real estate. I would guess, for agents who do have a facebook business page, (which is few), the vast majority just post listing info – pretty sad. Regarding airlines, you should know ahead of time they do not get customer service to start with – so having a smelly carp FB site should not be a surprise.

But how about this. We had a Dell printer. The short story is after one year we had gone through 4 machines – they all kept breaking and they only would send refurbished one in replacement. The last one broken down 14 days (more or less) after warranty, and after 2.5 hours on the phone with a guy in Asia, the CS guy hung up on my wife. To say she was angry is putting it mild. Well…..she posted the guys name and badge number on Dell’s FB page and told the entire story. There were many stories similar to her’s, but in the end someone from the US actually called her, listened to her story, and send us a NEW laser printer – not a refurbished one. That would never have happened before FB. Most people would have given up. Not sure what this means for the future, but it is interesting!